Download the program here.

On Saturday, December 6th, 2026 a citywide and national network of artists, organizers, cultural workers, and policy makers gathered at Mercury Store in Gowanus for Cultural Organizing for Community Change 2025. Co-sponsored with Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts NY, participants learned effective ways to deepen their work and engage creativity in organizing for community change. The event included our cultural organizing framework, hands on skill building workshops, and networking and resource exchange. Food was privided by neighborhood restaurants and cafes.

In the morning, our Welcome, Getting to Know One Another, and Cultural Organizing Multiple artists and practitioners shared how cultural organizing impacts their work, including several opportunities for the full room of folks to get to know one another and discuss the framework in small groups. Before lunch, participants had a moment of activation with Mikaila Ware of Urban Bush Women (picture above). Lunch time conversations generated cultural policy recommendations for the new mayoral transition and also included a Spoons for Freedom movement exercise.

Participants then chose among eight facilitated workshops: embodied movement, Urban Bush Women; theater, Jonathan Clark; writing, Andrea Assaf; collage, Janela Young; root shock/community development, University of Orange; environmental justice, Michael Higgins Jr; generative futures, amalia deloney, and power mapping, Alex Navarro-McKay. 

Collage workshop with Janela Young 

Writing workshop with Andrea Assaf 

Gowanus walking tour with Michael Higgins Jr.

Photos by Edwina Hay